


Eight Times Someone Tried to Kill Juno Steel

by Moonjay8



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Ft. Way too much angst for 10 in the morning, In which Juno "Can't have nice things" Steel has a Major Saviour Complex, Lets play Spot the Jupeter, M/M, Minor Character Death, Spoilers for Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 12:23:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonjay8/pseuds/Moonjay8
Summary: "My mother never killed me, though not for a lack of trying."When Juno was a child in Oldtown, murder was hardly unusual. Aka the story of how Juno's mother killed his brother.





	Eight Times Someone Tried to Kill Juno Steel

**Author's Note:**

> Since we don't have a name for Juno's Mother, I'm naming her Bellona after the Roman goddess of war, conquest and peace. I also made up a bit of a backstory for Juno's father, who walked out on his mother. So, enjoy? Or, don't, I don't know maybe you want to be in pain instead who am I to judge.

The first time someone tired to kill Juno Steel, he was ten years old, playing with his brother by the edge of the roof, too familiar with the horizon to pay any heed to the alleyway below. The houses in Oldtown looked, as the name suggested, old. Easy to access, and crushed together as if the people that had built them were trying to squash as many miserable people into the same space as possible. 

He could still trace the feint outline of a scar where he cut his palm on a shattered beer bottle after a mistimed jump racing his brother across the rooftops. They'd run from one end of the town to the other, leaping between buildings with the naive faith that they'd never need a net to catch them.

The first time someone tried to kill Juno Steel, he stood, eyes wide, clutching a blaster he'd won in a bet with some kid a couple years older and several brain cells stupider. It was practically falling to pieces in his hands, the metal was rusted and the trigger stiff. But it worked. With shaking hands, he took aim at the garbage unit the neighbors had forgotten to take inside. He missed all three shots. Chuckling, he handed it to his brother Ben, who turned it over with the curiosity of a child unware he was holding a grenade that was moments away from going off in his face. Juno smiled, then reached over to take it back when the door to the roof swung open.

"Juno! Ben!" A woman shrieked as she launched forward to grab the gun. Juno stumbled, all but jumping forward to avoid falling backwards toward the cold ground below.

"You foolish, stupid boy!" His mother was a tall woman, with sharp eyes and a gaunt look. Her face was red with accusation, and Juno wasn't sure which of them she was most angry at. But he figured if he acted like her rage was directed to him, Ben would never know the difference.

"I'm sorry." He said, pressing his palms anxiously into his side, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mama." 

He repeated the words, like a mantra, until a curt slap knocked the words from his mouth. And he screamed. Short, sharp, Juno strangled the sound only a heartbeat after it left his throat but he knew it was still a moment too late. He watched as his mother's face contorted, watched as she stepped forward to slap him again, felt the empty air behind him where the wall ended, felt himself crumble beneath her hand. Only as he started to fall did another hand reach out to grab him, the fingers soft and young and confused. 

The first time his own mother tired to kill Juno Steel, his brother saved him. Of course, neither of them really thought she wanted him dead. They were just two boys playing by the only rules  they knew, with no idea those rules had been nothing but pretty lies to hide the real game. The first time his mother tried to kill him, Juno doubted she even realised what she'd begun.

The second time someone tried to kill Juno Steel, there was no doubt in his mind what they intended. Partly because the man spat it into Juno's face, complete with blood from the hole of the missing tooth Juno had knocked from his mouth. Juno kneed him and ran, down to the sewers, and there he hid until the sun began to rise.

Ben threw an ice pack at him the moment he walked through the front door, his own set of bruises spreading like ink over his knuckles. Juno slung an arm over his shoulder, ruffled his hair.

"Happy eleventh, little bro." He chuckled, pulling out an old holo-game. It was years behind anything recent, the graphics clunky and harsh, but in Oldtown, a kid would have to fight tooth and nail for the smallest things. And fight Juno did, if only to see the ear splitting grin across Ben's face as they curled up in their room to play, huddled beneath blankets and pillows.

The third time someone tired to kill Juno Steel, he awoke to his mother standing over him, a cold gleam in her eyes and a colder one bouncing off the edge of the knife in her hand. Juno didn't even bother kneeing her before he ran, out the window, over the broken glass, and as far away from that house as he could get.

He came back barely an hour later, mind swamped with the thought of his brother lying dead on the floor with a knife that should've been in Juno's neck. Ben was asleep on the couch, their mother no where in sight. But the image haunted his mind for weeks, and Juno swore he'd never leave Ben to the wrath of a woman who'd have killed Juno given half a chance.

The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh time someone tried to kill Juno Steel, he let her try, but never succeed. Because it was always her, whether with a blaster, a rope, a knife, or her bare hands. His mother came back again, and again,  murder in her eyes and a hunger. For vengeance, he supposed. Juno always looked like his father, the same blazing expression and tired face as the photos, only thing he was missing was a uniform and a badge. Juno supposed the HCPD thought some people were above the law. No, scratch that, Juno thought every man envisioned himself above the law but only the HCPD had the power to make themselves immune to it.

Ben wasn't stupid, he saw too much to ever be a child. And when Juno crept into their room late at night, bruises across his chest and glass in his palms, his mother's words littered across his skin, Ben would slip across the room and pull the sheets over them both. And Juno would whisper hollow promises filled with hope they'd never get to have. And every time, his little brother would whisper back.

"You've gotta try and save people, Juno. I bet you could save 'em all, you're braver than the rest."

And every time Juno would whisper back, "I'll try, I'll try."

The eight time someone tried to kill Juno Steel, Ben died, a shot meant for Juno that blew straight through the side of his head and punched a hole in the wall behind him. Juno watched as his mother stumbled, clutching at her mouth. Ben, with his mother's hair and none of her coldness, tall and thin, sprawled out across the floor. Juno held his blaster, hands shaking, pulled out a second too late, his knuckles pale, bloody. 

Bellona shared a glance with her son, and for a moment, her eyes were so blue with sorrow Juno almost thought she might say sorry. Later, he'd laugh at how childish the thought seemed.

"You did this. You did this, you did this, you stupid boy." Her words were broken by harsh sobs. Juno raised his blaster, and for once his hands were still.

"Get out." He said, his voice cracking. And maybe he whispered, maybe he screamed, but the words were all the same.

"Get out, get out, get out."

She stood still, time moved around her. With careful aim, he shot the gun from her hand. Like a drunken man woken from a stupor, she stumbled backwards, and then out the door. Juno never checked to see if she closed it, already kneeling on the floor, pulling his brother's head onto his lap. He stuttered, stumbled, tripped over his words and he had no epiphany. Death held no solace, but especially not for the living.

In two years, Juno Steel had become the name on everyone's lips at the Hyperion City Police Department. It has started as a rumour, the kid whose brother was killed by his own mother, the kid from Oldtown. But a few shots fired, and the words changed. Sharpshooter, best on the force. The sentiment stayed though, right until the day he was not so gently forced to retire. 

Juno Steel could face death a hundred times and death would not be ready to take him hostage. But as he stared at the man asleep in the bed, he remembered a bright boy with a thousand dreams that stretched past the city. And he knew, no matter what life he might have wanted, someone had to stay behind to try and do some good in this goddamn place. Juno had to try and save them, every last one.


End file.
